Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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South Dakota: Women Can’t Think on Weekends or Holidays

South Dakota has long had the longest mandatory waiting period for women seeking an abortion, but now they’re about to make it even longer, 72 hours. And to make things even worse, the new law says that weekends and holidays don’t count toward the 72 hour wait:

Senators voted 24-9 Thursday to approve the bill, which has already been passed by the House. The measure will become law if signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Women seeking abortions in South Dakota currently must wait three days after seeing an abortion clinic doctor before they can have the procedure. The bill would make it so that weekends and holidays do not count in calculating the three-day waiting period.

Because it’s all about giving them time to think through their decision so they might change their mind. But apparently they don’t believe women can think on weekends or holidays. Not surprising, since they already didn’t think that women could make their own healthcare decisions.

Each woman will be assigned her personal anti-abortion protester who will follow her around and harass her continuously during that 72 hour period in order to “help” her make a decision. And if the waiting period goes over weekends or holidays, bonus harassment time!

IIRC, emergency birth control only works for the first 72 hours. By excluding weekends and holidays from the wait period, they are getting pretty close to that. This law could essentially render the clinics unable to hand it out to a significant portion of the women who would want to use it. Not to get too melodramatic, but if these clinics are a major source of such drugs for women, the state is essentially eliminating them as an option.

Presumably those 72 hours have to be between 0900 and 1700, weekdays only, with half an hour for lunch.

Which, under “best case” conditions, would imply that a woman who was raped on Saturday night and managed an 0800 first appointment would have to wait for her second appointment until 1400 the Friday after next. If her first appointment was after noon on Monday, it would be two weeks before the second was possible.

It pisses me off that “pro-lifers” rage against women having late abortions (“oh, we have to keep women from having an abortion of a perfectly healthy baby five minutes before it is born!”) while making it so that women have no choice but to have later abortions. Bah.

I am from SD and I have been arguing with many of my home state’s biggest idiots/assholes about this. The law also requires manditory counseling and guess who provides the counselors (aka preachers/harrassers/assholes). The Supreme Court needs to take these shitheads down a 2000 pegs.

My home state is twisted. I am ashamed of them. A poor woman tried to start a petition to put gay marriage on the ballot and she got the crap beat out of her. This is just one example of bulling by the SD wingnuts. Now they are trying to making bullying women who seek an abortion a state sponsored act.

“I, and my constituents say ‘What about their rights?’ This bill will rectifiy this terrible error. For too long in our fair state, they’ve have been trampled, forced against their will by Big Intrusive Government to have decisions made in them…”

Like by the time you scraped together the $500 to pay for it you haven’t already figured out what you want to do.

How are these these insane waiting periods even legal? Are they hoping just work up to 9 months?

I googled the Planned Parenthood legal challenge to it and had to stop reading in disgust. There are days when I read this shit and fantasize about somehow becoming president of the universe and making a law requiring everyone to be an organ donor whether they still need the damn organs or not. Except instead of everyone, I want to selectively apply the rules to names gleaned from anti-choice church goers. Oh that bullshit you posted about sluts killing their babies in the Yahoo news section? You’re on the list! My inner authoritarian does not fuck around lol.

And to save the taxpayers money we just force the “donor” to pay for the medical bills of the recipient. If they protest too much, we force them to view a fucking ultrasound of the recipient’s beating precious heart while hearing a lecture about the sanctity of life.

I just can only sustain that level of malicious stupidity for a few minutes before I start feeling bad though. For some reason reality has to intrude and ruin the fun.

I wish that would happen to the assholes who keep proposing and passing these bills :/

The law also requires manditory counseling and guess who provides the counselors

exactly.

the 72 working hour delay thing is a two-fer.

one, they will effectively remove access to patients looking for “morning after” solutions.

“counselors” will get extra shots at them since weekends don’t count.

….

Now, I’ve seen the changes in law that have made access to LEGAL abortions services all but unfeasible, but I’m still unclear on just how bad it has gotten.

some states seem to access so inherently limited now, that effectively access is WORSE than BEFORE Roe V Wade, I’m pretty sure of that, but overall, in the US, just how effectively limited IS access now?

Is there someone tracking those statistics? If it gets to the point where effective access is worse on average than before roe v wade, then overturning roe would just be icing, wouldn’t it?

AFAICT, Scotus no longer has the inclination to even challenge these laws, even though they are OBVIOUSLY unconstitutional under Roe.

Hmmm, rare for me to find myself standing in an area apparently labelled right-wing, but here goes …

I guess I’m a bit lost on this one (not the ‘not counting weekends’ bit, that’s pretty stupid – the waiting period itself). Why does having a three-day waiting period for an abortion cause such angst?

I can understand the whole outrage over ‘must have a scan’ legislation. That’s driven by the same desire – anti-abortion people hoping that women will re-think their abortion in the light of the scan, or even be turned off the abortion by the thought of having to have a scan. But that’s actually an invasive procedure, i.e. there’s a direct downside to the medical procedure required by the legislation. The waiting period legislation, while no doubt driven by by similar hopes from religious legislators, does not have that kind of invasive result.

Are we really saying “women who feel like having an abortion should be able to have one … even if three days later, they wish they hadn’t.” Don’t we have similar ‘cooling off’ period legislation relating to other big life decisions? Here in Australia, you have to get special permission to conclude a real estate purchase in less than 42 days, for instance.

I’d withdraw my objections if the three day delay somehow represented the difference between being able to get an abortion and not, but I haven’t seen anyone claim that is the case. Does it double the cost? Perhaps it should just require a phone call … a woman ringing a clinic and saying “I’d like to book an abortion for three days from now.” That, to me, should satisfy the legislation i.e. she has shown intent to have an abortion and still wants to three days later. I don’t think requiring that is particularly onerous, nor injurious of women’s reproductive rights.

Disclosure: Firstly I am Australian, and abortion is far less of an issue here than in the far more religious USA. Secondly, I am male, and thus less affected than the female gender, and I accept that women’s opinion’s on this issue should carry more weight. But I’m still interested in what actually propels people to believing – as most commenters here apparently do – that the three day waiting period is a terrible impost.

@ MartinC, because in many, many states across the US there is only 1 or 2 abortion providers in a state.

This forces many women to have to travel large distances. Twice. Some women are poor. Rural areas have terrible or more often non-existent public transportation. Some women have a difficuly time finding the transpoartation or getting off work.

On top of having to pay out of pocket, it means paying double the transportation costs and sometimes hotel bills all while maybe losing money because you don’t get paid time off for work.

It’s also gives the protesters a chance to know who is actually using the facility for an abortion because when you return, they know why. And trust me, they are checking. This effectively destroys your privacy and gives them two more opportunities to assault you.

Waiting periods disproportionately hurt poor women and as far as I can tell that is exactly what they are intended to do.

Would like to be treated like that in order to get health care? I realize it’s no big imposition for you, but you aren’t the only person on the earth.

In Australia women’s right to lawful abortion is determined by which state or territory she lives in. Abortion is covered by state-based criminal law or health regulations, and ranges between full lawful access and archaic-sounding legal restrictions accompanied by labyrinthine pathways to negotiate in order to have an abortion performed. It’s a situation too complex to summarise for this blog, but more information is available here. Suffice to say, wildly differing laws from state to state create confusion for doctors and problems for women.

Some 87% of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider and 35% of women aged 15–44 live in those counties.[32] The proportions are lower in the Northeast (53% and 18%) and the West (74% and 13%). In 2005, nonhospital providers estimated that while more than seven in 10 women traveled less than 50 miles to access abortion services, nearly two in 10 traveled 50–100 miles and almost one in 10 traveled more than 100 miles.[42]

In case you were wondering how many people might have trouble getting to their pre-booked 3 day spa abortion.

Ichthyic –
a) a collection of NGO’s
b) they are lobbying the Federal government (not the State Governments) to hold each state to the same laws (ie transferring it from State to Federal responsibility. This would also stop the funding squabbles between the two tiers and ensure a better level of overall funding).
c) Apparently, according to ChildrenByChoice, no abortions occur outside of Queensland. (It doesn’t address your ‘labyrinthine procedure’ in different states argument).

Not really addressing your argument as effectively as you might think (IMHO). Perhaps another website might be better.

Wouldn’t a better website show the state of abortion law in all states?This is outdated but it give some guide.
Another quick search came up with this from the Parliament of Australia (again outdated).
And so on.

They did not want women to avoid the blatantly anti-abortion counsellors by starting the process on a Friday and making scheduling a bully session before three days more difficult since the bullies do not work holidays and weekends hence the change in the already disgusting law. After the church does not want to miss out on yelling at the woman about how she is going to hell if she doesn’t change her mind, That she is an evil murderer. The anti-abortionists were feeling deprived of access and their buddies in Pierre helped them out.

Another summary (from 2004). Note the similarities and differences between states. No waiting periods, available if there’s a ‘reasonable belief that the women’s life is in danger’ (in QLD, NSW, TAS; ‘the 1969 Menhennit ruling (R v Davidson)’). In VIC the standard is ‘informed consent’, anywhere in the US use that standard?
Dingo

I guess I’m a bit lost on this one (not the ‘not counting weekends’ bit, that’s pretty stupid – the waiting period itself). Why does having a three-day waiting period for an abortion cause such angst?

In the U.S. (martinc is Australian), pro-abortion rights advocates do not concede there is a competing rights conflict between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn. The share of the population who supports this position is large and hasn’t changed hardly at all over the past decades. IIRC it’s about 70+%; but that supermajoirty shrinks as the pregnancy progresses over time. Early in the pregnancy, the first two semesters of a tri-semester term, Supreme Court precedents agree there is no competing right between a pregnant female and the unborn; so government has a mandate to protect the interests of those females who want to get an abortion, not infringe upon that right.

So by what logic, by what power, does the government have delegated authority to infringe upon the pregnant female’s right? None, not constitutionally and not by the just governance standards of the Declaration of Independence that provides a referencing standard to test the legitimacy of the U.S. Constitution and how government leverages its powers to rightfully protect or infringe upon our individual rights. So it’s very frustrating, even from an abstract perspective, to see theocrats leverage the power of government to deny women their right to make their own choices regarding abortion – in spite of a Constitution that demands the opposite.

When we get deeper into the pregnancy, the state begins to recognize an interest in protecting the rights of the unborn, not that those rights necessarily supersede the rights of the pregnant female. The courts via precedent begin to recognize a competing rights controversy. Of course not all abortion rights advocates agree this is a proper exercise of power by the government, those pro-abortion rights advocates instead argue the unborn have no rights to be protected until they’re born. So even then, government infringing on the access to an abortion fails their test of ‘just governance’, in spite of current Supreme Court precedent. In the U.S. it’s perfectly valid to argue precedent is wrong.

So when we explore the framework of this issue, at least early in the pregnancy, there is no coherent, cogent, constitutionally-valid argument to deny women their right to an abortion or to delay access to one. In the U.S. the states have failed miserably to defend females’ rights on this issue, they need to focus far more energy on increasing access to abortion, not contriving ways to limit or deny access as they are, unfortunately, doing now.

On a practical matter, many young females especially, but also all poor females, do not have the luxury of controlling their environment to the point such delays are easily overcome. In some states females have to travel hundreds of miles if not out-of-state, stay overnight, all in order to get a simple procedure that can feasibly done even in the smallest of towns which still provides health care services. Time, money, and travel are luxuries to many people. They’re often living paycheck to paycheck or even worse. These anti-abortion rights legislators know that and don’t care, they’re instead seeking to deny women their rights in spite of their constitutional duty to instead better protect their rights.

No it doesn’t explicitly say that so far as I know (not having actually read the legislation), but it doesn’t have to in order to have that effect. Poll tax laws probably didn’t explicitly say “Don’t let the Negroes vote!”, either.

I had a person from AT&T tell me that I’d get a call back from them in 24 business hours. I asked her if she meant three days and after a brief moment to think she confirmed that, yes, that was another way to put it.

I don’t usually bother correcting this error, but people, Plan B and other emergency contraception pills are not abortions. They’re not regulated as abortions, they’re regulated as medications. They don’t act as abortions. They don’t even work if you’re already pregnant. The ability of a rape victim to get Plan B in a usable timeframe would not be affected by this. To continue conflating the two just helps the creeping Overton window mission of redefining all hormonal reproductive interventions as abortion. Cut that out right now, OK?

There are a number of outlets for OTC “Emergency Contraception” drugs. There is also a caveat that the pharmacy/pharmacist does not have to dispense the medication if he/she does not want to.

I’m guessing that the same sort of harassment that is used against sluts who get all preggers ‘cuz they are hot’n’horny and can’t keep their hoo-hoos covered up is employed against small town pharmacists.

@49: I’m aggressively pro-reproductive rights (though I’m not sure why you care), which is why it’s important to keep the terminology and the set of problems straight. By referring to a drug that has nothing to do with abortion as an “abortion,” then you instantly widen the boundaries of the forced birth movement’s field of oversight and let them set the terms of the debate dishonesty. Plan B is, basically, a mega-dose of birth control pills. Shall we call birth control pills abortion, too? That kind of terminology creep is incredibly harmful and should not be accepted in a scientifically minded group.

And yes, pharmacists can (and do) refuse to dispense Plan B. They do it all the time (though I have never heard of one that refused to do it because of external pressure instead of “conscience”.) That’s a different problem than laws about abortion.

I don’t usually bother correcting this error, but people, Plan B and other emergency contraception pills are not abortions. They’re not regulated as abortions, they’re regulated as medications. They don’t act as abortions. They don’t even work if you’re already pregnant.

All of what you say is true, clear, and reasonable. I am still suspicious that consevative SD legislators may not agree with you. That a significant portion of SD women may only have access to Plan B through the regulated clinics, and that the law will be interpreted to prevent clinicians to hand out Plan B on someone’s initial/first visit.

If I’m wrong about that, great! I’d be perfectly happy if, as a drug, they can go down to the local pharmacy and pick it up without a waiting period and without needing to go to counseling, etc. I am skeptical that is the case, though.

The ability of a rape victim to get Plan B in a usable timeframe would not be affected by this.

If you’re right, I’m glad. Let’s just say I don’t trust these particular legislators to base the implementation details of their proposed regulation on sound science and resonable social policy.

All of what you say is true, clear, and reasonable. I am still suspicious that consevative SD legislators may not agree with you. That a significant portion of SD women may only have access to Plan B through the regulated clinics, and that the law will be interpreted to prevent clinicians to hand out Plan B on someone’s initial/first visit.

That is entirely likely to be the case. That said, Plan B is, as noted by democommie in @49 above, available in many pharmacies around the state. Given that there are only two abortion clinics in South Dakota, I suspect far more women get their Plan B from, say, the Wal-mart in Huron than schlep to a clinic unnecessarily for it. Increasing constraints on Plan B is definitely a worry, and I don’t doubt that South Dakota will be on the forefront of limiting access to that, too. However, we don’t do South Dakota any favours by conflating the two prematurely.

No, I caught that. It’s what I was asking about. As I understand it, legally (as well as factually), EC is contraception, not abortion, unless SD has done something to change that. Has it actually done so, or are people just assuming that?

I don’t usually bother correcting this error, but people, Plan B and other emergency contraception pills are not abortions. They’re not regulated as abortions, they’re regulated as medications. They don’t act as abortions. They don’t even work if you’re already pregnant. The ability of a rape victim to get Plan B in a usable timeframe would not be affected by this.

This. This is why I was asking. Because SD would have to do something extra to stretch this law to cover Plan B. Is there any actual evidence that this has been done? (If there is, then something must be done. If there is not, then it’s distracting from the real issue to a false one, which is not helpful.)

The usual roadblock, as others have noted, is the so-called conscience clause. Which is generally quite enough, and which needs desperately to be fixed.

Thanks for the info. The double-cost is a genuine factor, as I stated in my initial post. The protester thing is a factor too.

Re your roadblack argument at 24, please note I don’t necessarily support the proposed legislation; I only commented because the reaction to it seemed out of proportion to what I thought the legislation could be: simply a requirement that booking an abortion and having the abortion be at least three days apart. While I support abortion on demand, an abortion is something that is a life-changing decision, and I think that as long as the factors you bring up – the double-cost etc. – can be eliminated (phone bookings is the obvious one), there is still some value to having a waiting period.

Michael Heath @ 43:

Thanks for your considered reply. I think some points you touched on are key: there are theocrats in power, and it’s obvious they are going to enact as much legislation as they can to prevent as many abortions as they can, for purely theocratic reasons. I guess my point about this is that we still have to look at each piece of proposed legislation and consider it on its merits: just because loony theocrats would cheer if it were passed, doesn’t necessarily mean it is bad legislation. By all means present reasons why this legislation is bad – I don’t know enough detail to say either way (and I have a view from a country where abortion is simply not the hot-button issue it is in the USA), and your comments and Leni’s do add evidence against the legislation – but I still think it is possible to consider a piece of theoretical legislation that said you could book an abortion (by phone) but only “three days hence”. In other words, you can get an abortion merely by demonstrating that you wanted it three days ago, and you still want it now. That type of “waiting period” legislation is valuable, appears in other situations, and is not considered as interfering with citizens’ rights to do what the legislation requires a delay on.

Icthyic @ 25 & 35:

My perception of abortion in Australia is that you can get one pretty easily if you want to, though I admit I’ve never had to be involved in arranging that. I’m in NSW … sounds like it might be a bit different in Queensland, which is the closest Australia has to a conservative redneck state. I’m not sure what your various links were supposed to demonstrate: most of them said the legislation is a bit varied and confusing, but the one thing they all seemed to agree on is that women seeking an abortion in Australia do not suffer from the access problems other commenters in the US have referred to. Example: your Wikipedia link referred to a poll where Australians were asked whether they thought “the current abortion laws, which generally allow abortion for the sake of life, health, or economic factors” were OK … clearly their perception matches mine that abortion is reasonably available.

Icthyic @ 30:

… and forgo my legal right to use ru486.

As other commenters (@40, @47ff) have discussed, ‘morning after’ pills and abortions are entirely different things, and it is very misleading to conflate them. My point related to a woman finding out she is pregnant and then deciding to have an abortion, and I suspect that is what this proposed legislation refers to as well. In such a situation, RU486 is far too late.

martin, you are either dishonest or ignorant.

I’m hoping for just ignorant.

I asked a genuine question about something I was unfamiliar with, and you seem to be effectively criticizing me for failing to instead immediately leap on the bandwagon without resolving that question in my mind first. Several other commenters seem to have been able to rise to the challenge of actually answering my question rationally without apparently feeling the need to resent the fact that I asked the question at all. This blog sometimes quite correctly criticizes ‘right-wing echo chambers'; I do not think the answer to this problem is to set up left-wing echo chambers.

As other commenters (@40, @47ff) have discussed, ‘morning after’ pills and abortions are entirely different things, and it is very misleading to conflate them. My point related to a woman finding out she is pregnant and then deciding to have an abortion, and I suspect that is what this proposed legislation refers to as well. In such a situation, RU486 is far too late.

RU-486 is used typically as an abortifacient. Plan B and “Morning After” pills are distinct from RU-486 (As RU-486 is effective IIRC for the first two months or so of pregnancy).

martinc: While I support abortion on demand, an abortion is something that is a life-changing decision, and I think that as long as the factors you bring up – the double-cost etc. – can be eliminated (phone bookings is the obvious one), there is still some value to having a waiting period.

Then you seriously do not know much about it. No one walks into an appointment for an abortion without having thought a lot about it. How dare you, or anyone else, tell us we haven’t thought it through enough to suit you. It’s not something that should be legislated or mandated.

You’re demonstrating, repeatedly, that your ignorance of the real life impact of abortion is deep and broad. Maybe go educate yourself.

I asked a genuine question about something I was unfamiliar with, and you seem to be effectively criticizing me for failing to instead immediately leap on the bandwagon without resolving that question in my mind first.

People are criticizing you for throwing your opinions around when you are obviously completely ignorant of the issues at hand. If you don’t want to be criticized for that, then don’t give your opinions — which are distinct from questions; you offered both — without educating yourself first.

shockna @ 47: hmmm (after belated Google), you’re right re terminology (i.e. RU486 is distinct from ‘the morning after pill’). Serves me right for putting specific detail on a subject on which I am not familiar. I’d better stay generic: my point is that the only real situation I was trying to address in my initial post was the kind of abortion where a three day delay is not going to invalidate the method.

@ 62, we love our sinners, just so long as they work on their sins. I, personally, have been known to commit a fuck pow once in while, but with a few exceptions most commenters here accept as simply an example of “youthful indiscretion” from an old coot.

RU-486 is an abortifactant. The various iterations of “Emergency” contraception are not. The SD legislature is, apparently, run by people who think that every sperm is sacred, every egg a blessing. I would be massively not surprised if they DID try to make the two types of medication effectively equivalent under law. RU-486, btw, is controlled and not OTC, afaia.

And I think that as long as the factors you bring up – the double-cost etc. – can be eliminated (phone bookings is the obvious one), there is still some value to having a waiting period.

I don’t know about the SD law for sure, but phone bookings are probably not likely. Probably because that is far too rational a compromise and these people are not interested in compromise and they aren’t interested in making it easy for anyone. As I said above, the laws are designed to be roadblocks and this is evident from their overall strategy.

Waiting periods, in person visits, forced participation in counseling by “disinterested” third parties, forced ultrasounds, forced listening to heartbeats, forcing providers to have stand-alone buildings, religious exemption clauses for providers, banning the use of computers to provide consults, redefining fetuses as people (while conveniently forgetting that no one has the right to force another person to sacrifice their body parts or life for one’s own survival). What am I forgetting? Proabably several important things as the barrage is so constant and so seemingly reasonable in each little instance that it’s fucking impossible to keep up with. It’s not just a waiting period, martin. It never is.

I don’t think you are trying to be dishonest, but I do think you have some very big blinders on. Each little chip in access is a victory for the anti-choice people that will eventually, if left unchecked, effectively bar many women and girls from having access to these services. It already is for some. Please keep in mind that you are seeing these things as a one-off instance. I see them as an incessant barrage of legislative roadblocks, because I see them every day in one form or another and because I’ve lived them. And I’m lucky. I had a job and a car and someone to help me pay for it, as well as living in a location with access to services. A lot of people don’t have that.

And yes, it is an important decision. But it’s also one that most women don’t regret and don’t need counseling for. If they do, they should have it available to them, not foisted upon them by the state and given by predatory ideologues who are trying to push their religion on people they think are, and who may be, vulnerable. Elective counseling is also something that could be better assessed by the provider and the patient without interference from third parties, and would also better preserve privacy rights of the patients (and people who come in with them of course, many of whom are likely the fathers).

Anyway, I sort of forgot about this conversation and this is not a timely reply, so probably you won’t be back to read it.

But in case you do, in the future, with regard to American abortion legislation, just go ahead and assume the worst. It’s nice that you want to give them the benefit of doubt, but ultimately a waste of time. They are exactly as dishonest as the people who want to “teach both sides of the controversy” about evolution. Once you understand what their goals are, you don’t really need to approach each new instance of “teach the controversy” legislation with a clean slate. You scratch the surface a tiny bit and it just becomes apparent, no matter how many different kinds of packages they try to hide it in.

leni: thanks for the post @ 64. I thought I’d reply just so you would know I did get back to read it, and I appreciate your writing it. It gave me lots to think about … the equivalence with creationism was quite enlightening.